


False Faces

by Mercurie



Category: Thor (Movies)
Genre: Bittersweet, Brothers, Costumes, Gen, Humor, Pre-Canon, Wordcount: 100-1.000
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-31
Updated: 2015-10-31
Packaged: 2018-04-29 06:33:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 678
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5118707
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mercurie/pseuds/Mercurie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Loki's early efforts at illusion experience a hiccup.</p>
            </blockquote>





	False Faces

**Author's Note:**

  * For [aurilly](https://archiveofourown.org/users/aurilly/gifts).



The revels had begun. A thin sliver of music snaked its way down the hall into Loki's room; what he could hear of it, anyway, beneath Thor's pounding on his door.

"Brother!" Thor groaned. "Are you stitching your costume with your own hands? All the prettiest maids will be claimed long before we arrive!"

"Not to worry," Loki called. "Just get drunk enough to dance with a goat and you'll have no lack of partners. Like last year."

A long pause was followed by two slow, frustrated thumps, but Thor's reply was good-natured. "I've no objection to sweeping a goat off its feet... as long as it isn't just my goat-faced brother in disguise. _Like last year._ "

Thor laughed; on the other side of the door, Loki scowled. His costume last year had been a white stag, not a goat. It wasn't his fault Thor had accidentally broken the antlers only an hour into the dances. He would make up for it this year: he believed he had finally perfected the art of illusion Mother had been teaching him. His disguise would be not only Thor-proof, but more completely convincing than paint and twine and cloth could ever be. 

The only problem was conjuring the _right_ costume.

He examined himself in the long, gold-rimmed looking glass. His bedroom behind him looked queer in the mirror-world, as queer as he did himself with his deep blue skin and red eyes. He was not surprised at the image; he knew exactly what had gone wrong. The magic had confused itself, that was all. 

He tiptoed to the door and put his eye to the peephole. A blue-streaked, furrowed brow greeted him, frowning as if it could blast the door off its hinges by sheer force of impatience. Thor, never the most creative of revellers, had chosen a classic monster for his disguise: a frost giant from the barbarous wastes of Jotunheim. No doubt there would be at least twenty other "jotuns" in the Great Hall tonight, not that this would put a dent in Thor's conviction that his costume was the grandest, fearsomest, and wittiest ever to be seen on Winternights. But such a pedestrian choice was not Loki's design. 

The magic simply needed to re-orient itself. It needed a good dose of Thor to drive off the whiff of jotun. 

"Perhaps I'll stay in tonight," Loki said, allowing the hint of a yawn to creep into his voice. "Aren't we getting a bit old for childish festivals? I've found the most fascinating book about ancient Vanir runes..."

Something close to a roar rumbled through the door, followed by a whistle and a jaw-rattling clank. A square crater appeared in the solid gold. Loki bit his lip to suppress a laugh. Father would be _thrilled_ at a new Mjolnir-shaped dent in the royal apartments. Better yet, he saw his image in the mirror shimmer: the colors merged and disintegrated, spinning and flashing until they came together in a new form. Instead of a frost giant's face staring at him, it was Thor's, smug within its halo of spun sunshine. The act of calling Mjolnir had reminded Loki's spell who it was meant to be imitating. _Make me look like Thor,_ he had whispered, and so it had. 

Now that his plan was aright again, he acted quickly. 

"Loookiiiiii...." he heard Thor growl, but he was already gone, out the window, leaving behind an illusion of his lanky, black-headed self and running off through the light rain and the dark in his new brilliant disguise. Impatient as he sounded, Thor would wait a while longer before he abandoned his dawdling brother for the party. Plenty of time to wreak an abundance of mischief. Asgard wouldn't know what hit it. His feet and his heart felt light, as if by stealing Thor's face he had stolen some of his spirit as well; and when he arrived in the light and music of the Great Hall, every eye turned on him with undimmed admiration. 

This was going to be the best Winternights ever.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[Podfic] False Faces](https://archiveofourown.org/works/6405874) by [Mercurie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mercurie/pseuds/Mercurie), [sisi_rambles](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sisi_rambles/pseuds/sisi_rambles)




End file.
